September 2009 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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The third quarter held good news for the comics industry, with September’s five-week month boosting overall retailer orders of comic books, trade paperbacks, and magazines into positive territory for 2009.

Direct-market retailers ordered about $6 million more worth of comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines from Diamond Comic Distributors than in the previous September, putting the overall market ahead by about $3 million overall. There was resilience in unit sales within the top-selling comic books list: The Top 300 was back over 7 million copies, a 4% increase over the same month last year and a 12% increase in dollar terms.

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top 50 Indy and Small Publisher charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

September 2009 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Shipped to North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top 50 Indy, Manga, and Small Publisher charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

The links lead to details about each title on Amazon. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

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Trade paperbacks remained just slightly off within the Top 100, but the industry was ahead for the year once the Top 300 comic books were added to the total. The trade paperback list was led by the fifth Buffy Season Eight trade.

The Top 300 Graphic Novels sold had a total retail price of$7.19 million

(-2% vs. same month previous year, comparing just the Top 100 vs the Top 100)(+31% vs. same month 5 years earlier, comparing just the Top 100 vs the Top 100)(+27% vs. same month 10 years earlier, comparing just the Top 25 vs. Top 25)

Category to date for year:$60.36 million(-9% vs. previous year)

COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVEL DOLLAR SALES

The Top 300 Comics and Top 300 Graphic Novels sold had a combined total retail price of$31.76 million

(+10% vs. same month previous year, comparing just the Top 100 vs the Top 100)(+24% vs. same month 5 years earlier, comparing just the Top 100 vs the Top 100)(+33% vs. same month 10 years earlier, comparing just the Top 25 GNs vs. Top 25 GNs)

Note: This category diverges slightly from Diamond's reported measures for all comics and graphic novels. Slight differences are introduced by the presence of magazines and other factors.

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.44

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$3.48

Average cost of comics in the Top 25:$3.55

Median cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

Most common cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Units

Marvel

47.58%

DC

32.74%

Dark Horse

3.72%

Image

2.93%

IDW

2.58%

Dynamic Forces

2.11%

Boom

1.42%

Archie

0.95%

Viz

0.62%

Wizard

0.45%

Eaglemoss

0.39%

Bongo

0.28%

Devil's Due

0.28%

Tokyopop

0.23%

Avatar

0.22%

Random House

0.22%

Harris

0.21%

Bluewater

0.21%

Zenescope

0.19%

Aspen

0.19%

Other

2.46%

Share of Overall Dollars

Marvel

40.72%

DC

30.47%

Dark Horse

5.82%

Image

3.20%

IDW

3.19%

Dynamic Forces

2.22%

Eaglemoss

1.73%

Boom

1.52%

Viz

1.23%

Random House

0.75%

Archie

0.63%

Tokyopop

0.60%

Wizard

0.54%

Avatar

0.27%

Zenescope

0.26%

Bongo

0.26%

Devil's Due

0.25%

Bluewater

0.21%

Aspen

0.14%

Harris

0.09%

Other

5.89%

Items in Top 300

Marvel

111

DC

97

Image

16

Dynamic

16

Boom

14

IDW

14

Dark Horse

12

Archie

4

Bongo

3

Devil's Due

3

Aspen

2

Abstract

1

Avatar

1

Bluewater

1

Broadsword

1

Harris

1

Radical

1

Red 5

1

Zenescope

1

Share of Units in Top 300

Marvel

50.50%

DC

35.53%

Dark Horse

3.08%

Dynamic

2.31%

Image

2.28%

IDW

2.24%

Boom

1.36%

Archie

0.81%

Bongo

0.33%

Harris

0.26%

Devil's Due

0.24%

Aspen

0.23%

Avatar

0.17%

Abstract

0.15%

Zenescope

0.12%

Broadsword

0.12%

Bluewater

0.11%

Radical

0.09%

Red 5

0.06%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

52.77%

DC

33.96%

Dark Horse

2.69%

IDW

2.57%

Dynamic

2.21%

Image

2.06%

Boom

1.40%

Archie

0.58%

Bongo

0.35%

Devil's Due

0.24%

Avatar

0.20%

Aspen

0.18%

Abstract

0.15%

Harris

0.15%

Zenescope

0.14%

Bluewater

0.13%

Broadsword

0.10%

Radical

0.08%

Red 5

0.06%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 300 TPBs

Marvel

47.53%

DC

33.60%

Dark Horse

5.24%

IDW

2.87%

Image

2.68%

Dynamic

2.09%

Boom

1.28%

Archie

0.52%

Viz

0.37%

Random House

0.34%

Tokyopop

0.31%

Bongo

0.27%

Udon

0.22%

Adhouse

0.22%

Fantagraphics

0.20%

Devil's Due

0.19%

Hachette

0.19%

Norton

0.17%

Top Shelf

0.17%

Oni

0.16%

Avatar

0.15%

Aspen

0.14%

Abstract

0.12%

Harris

0.11%

Zenescope

0.11%

Bluewater

0.10%

Bandai

0.09%

Broadsword

0.08%

Drawn & Quarterly

0.06%

Digital Manga

0.06%

Radical

0.06%

New England

0.05%

Red 5

0.05%

Titan

0.04%

Scholastic

0.04%

Houghton Mifflin

0.03%

First Second

0.03%

Raw Junior

0.02%

Ape

0.02%

NBM

0.02%

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond shipped to North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

An item may appear in more than one month's charts due to reorders; for a better idea of a comic book's overall sales, look for its end-of-year sales in the Year Overview section, where available.

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